You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees. So said Kaiser Wilhelm II to his German army in August 1914. But World War I would rage for more than 4 years, taking the lives of nearly 10 million soldiers. Some of the most unrelenting combat was waged along the infamous Western Front, where, for one unforgettable Christmas in 1914, enemies set guns aside and came together in friendship.And the Soldiers Sang, written by J. Patrick Lewis, recounts this unlikely truce through the perspective of a young soldier named Owen Davies, who travels from the green country of Wales to the muddy battlefields of Belgium.
J. Patrick Lewis spent years as an economics professor before finding his passion as a writer. Today he holds an esteemed reputation in children's publishing, having authored more than 60 picture books, including such acclaimed titles as Black Cat Bone and The House. In 2011 he was named The Children's Poet Laureate by the The Poetry Foundation.
Gary Kelley is an internationally known artist who has illustrated numerous picture books, including Black Cat Bone. His artwork has appeared in such prominent periodicals as The New Yorker and Rolling Stone and can be seen in Barnes & Noble's bookstore murals.
Told in panels, graphic-novel style, and with stark, poetic prose, this large-scale picture book for older children is a jaw-droppingly powerful depiction of war and of humanity's ability to transcend its most dismal experiences. During World War I, a war that 'welcomed no melody,' Owen Davis, a fictional young Welsh soldier, recounts the true story of how his fellow soldiers put aside guns on Christmas Eve 1914 and joined the Germans in Christmas caroling. Kelley's expressionistic paintings are haunting and magnificent. In the midst of the bleakness of World War I on the Western Front somewhere in Belgium, a miracle occurred. On Christmas Eve 1914, the Germans and the English were at a stalemate. Each side had gonel3á
![And the Soldiers Sang [Hardcover]](/itemImage/2/9/4/2/2_694506.jpg "And the Soldiers Sang [Hardcover]")